Brian’s Bruisers came out top in the fun filled Friendship Touch Rugby Festival at City of Derry Rugby Club on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Despite a strong challenge in the final, from Richard’s Rockets, the Bruisers managed to hold on to an early lead and ran out winners by 18 – 10 at the end of an entertaining day’s rugby.<\/p>\n
The competition featured eight teams drawn from the players of City of Derry’ woman’s and men’s sides. The teams were split into two pools of four and a series of matches were played on a league basis with the pool winners going into the final.<\/p>\n
Under the rules of the competition bonus points were awarded for scores from women and the “more senior” men of the teams leading to some interesting substitution decision’s and a few extra passes as the try line approached and initially there were a few “discussions” as the teams tried to come to terms with the format of play.<\/p>\n
However the hard working team of referees featuring B Lynch, I Orr, G Gillen, H Robinson,\u00a0 E Deans, N Deeney and J Rankin quickly established order as the competition progressed leading to some entertaining and competitive matches.<\/p>\n
Richard’s Rockets came through Group One with wins over Phil’s Phantoms and Russel’s Rhinos and a draw against Sam’s Saxons leaving the Rockets the only inbeaten side in their group.<\/p>\n
Brian’s Briuiser’s progressed through their group in stately fashion with wins over Mick’s Mavericks and Diane’s Dynamos before squeezing past Steve’s Supremo’s in a hotly contested match which decided the group.<\/p>\n
Both teams served up a fast paced game in the final, however, the defensive organisation of Brian’s Bruisers won the day, restricting their opponents to two scores.<\/p>\n
Final Teams From:<\/strong> Mark Spencer, Haisley Robinson, Brian Prue, Rudi Moore,Peter Corr, Mike Poole, Lizzie Ballentine, J Rankin, Megs Lapsley, Bevan Lynch, Kevin McLaughlin, Richard McCarter, Maurice Logue, Nathan Deeney, John ‘Sledgehammer’ Black, Philip Duffy, Malcolm Montgomery, Richard Gillen, Mal Kelly, Grainne Crabtree<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Brian’s Bruisers came out top in the fun filled Friendship Touch Rugby Festival at City of Derry Rugby Club on Saturday afternoon. Despite a strong challenge in the final, from Richard’s Rockets, the Bruisers managed to hold on to an early lead and ran out winners by 18 – 10 at the end of an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1978,1352,1950,1951,1947,1628,1972,1976,1981,1439,1975,1984,1982,553,1979,1977,1948,1974,1980,1973,1944,1351,1983,1458,1946,1349,1943,1945,1949,1952],"class_list":["post-1670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-city-of-derry","tag-bevan-lynch","tag-brian-prue","tag-brians-briuisers","tag-city-of-derry-touch-rugby","tag-dianes-dynamos","tag-grainne-crabtree","tag-haisley-robinson","tag-j-rankin","tag-john-sledgehammer-black","tag-kevin-mclaughlin","tag-lizzie-ballentine","tag-mal-kelly","tag-malcolm-montgomery","tag-mark-spencer","tag-maurice-logue","tag-megs-lapsley","tag-micks-mavericks","tag-mike-poole","tag-nathan-deeney","tag-peter-corr","tag-phils-phantoms","tag-philip-duffy","tag-richard-gillen","tag-richard-mccarter","tag-richards-rockets","tag-rudi-moore","tag-russels-rhinos","tag-sams-saxons","tag-steves-supremos","tag-touch-rugby-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1670"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1685,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670\/revisions\/1685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}